‘Not long at all,’ Dr Holcombe replied. ‘Just a little over a month.’
‘A month!’ I tried to sit up, but of course all that happened was that the machines on either side of my bed started going nuts — especially the heart monitor, because I was having a panic attack thinking about all the work I was going to have to make up. Plus, I felt dizzy. And not just at the prospect of all the homework awaiting me.
It was of course at this point that Frida decided to walk back into the room, holding a water pitcher and glass she’d snagged from somewhere.
Hearing all the commotion, she froze in the doorway, apparently thinking
I was having some kind of attack.
‘Is she — is she —’ Frida stood there, bug-eyed and stammering.
‘She’s fine,’ Mom said emphatically, pressing down on my shoulder to keep me from sitting up. ‘Em, stop it. You have a lot more important things to worry about than school right now.’
Was she kidding? What could be more important than school?
‘I’m gonna be held back!’ I insisted. ‘I’m going to have to repeat eleventh grade!’
‘No, you aren’t,’ Mom said. ‘Please, Em. Calm down. Doctor, can you give her something—’
‘Oh no,’ I yelled. ‘You are not putting me to sleep again! I need my laptop! Somebody needs to go home and get my laptop so I can start catching up. Does this room have Wi-Fi?’
‘Now now,’ Dr Holcombe said, chuckling a little. ‘Let’s take it one step at a time, young lady. Frida, come here with that water.’
Frida, still looking at me like I was some creature who’d crawled from the deep, came forward, holding the glass of water she’d poured with a trembling hand.
‘H-here,’ she said.
I lifted my hand and took the glass from her — noticing again, as I did so, the glamorous long fingernails she’d glued over my bitten ones.
‘Thanks — and for the manicure too,’ I added.
‘I… I didn’t give you a manicure,’ Frida said in a voice that shook.
‘Right,’ I said. I took the glass…
But because I wasn’t allowed to sit up, it wasn’t easy to drink from it.
Also, somehow I missed my mouth, so the ice-cold water went pouring down my neck and into my hospital gown.
Which just made me madder than ever. ‘What the—’
‘Now now,’ Dr Holcombe said, mopping up the worst of it with his own handkerchief. ‘See what I mean? Let’s take things one day at a time, shall we? Homework can wait. Want to try that again?’
I really was parched. I nodded, and this time Mom helped me get the cup to my lips, and the water — the coolest, most delicious water I had ever tasted — made it into my mouth instead of all down my gown.
‘There now,’ Dr Holcombe said. ‘That’s better. Do you think you’ll be wanting to tackle some food soon?’
Just the word food made my stomach rumble. I nodded eagerly, and Dr Holcombe looked pleased.
‘Frida,’ he said to my sister. ‘Why don’t you run down to the cafeteria and get something your sister might like. What do you feel like eating, Emerson?’
‘I know what she’ll feel like eating,’ Mom said, her nose wrinkling a little, the way it always does when she’s about to say something she thinks is funny. ‘Ice-cream sundae. Right, Em?’
‘With a chocolate-chip cookie on the side,’ Dad said, looking a little more like his normal self, and not Fake Cheerful Guy.
‘Is that what you want… Em?’ Frida asked.
Except, weirdly… it wasn’t.
‘Sure,’ I said. Because I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t wanted ice cream and a cookie. Until now.
Oddly though, that ‘Sure’ turned out to be the right thing to say. Because for the first time since I’d woken up and seen her, Frida smiled. Tentatively, but still. It was a smile. Then she said, ‘Be right back,’ and took off.
Which was pretty strange in itself. I mean, when was the last time my little sister had ever been eager to bring me food… in bed? The fact that Frida was so willing to fetch and carry for me told me way more about how hurt I must be than my dad’s fake cheer or my mom’s teariness.
‘So what happened?’ I asked when Frida was safely out of earshot.
‘Why am I here? Was there an accident? A subway accident?’
Mom frowned. ‘You don’t remember? Going to Stark’s? Anything?’
Going to Stark’s? Gabriel had mentioned something about Stark’s, too. A grand opening. Something about those words seemed to tickle my memory, but when I tried to remember, it was like it was just out of my grasp…
‘We don’t have to talk about that now,’ Dr Holcombe said hastily.
‘Let’s concentrate on getting you better.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I mean… I’ve been out of school for a month?
What, have I been in a coma or something?’
‘The, er, accident didn’t cause the coma,’ Mom said gently. ‘Dr Holcombe placed you in a chemical coma, so that you could heal more comfortably. He’s been bringing you slowly out of it over the past few days, to see how you were doing.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘What part of me is hurt, exactly? Because I feel pretty good. Except for my head. And my voice. Do you hear how weird my voice sounds?’
My mom and dad looked at Dr Holcombe, who said to me, ‘Well, Emerson, the truth is, your injuries were, in fact, extremely severe. We used a special technique we’ve developed in order to save your life, since the type of injury you suffered is, in fact, fatal.’
I blinked at him. ‘But I’m alive.’
‘Because the procedure worked,’ Dad explained.
‘Worked isn’t the word for it,’ Dr Holcombe enthused, his eyes glittering excitedly behind his plastic-framed glasses. ‘Your recovery up until now has far, far surpassed our expectations. We certainly didn’t expect you to be speaking, much less for you to possess any sort of motor skills, until many days from now, if not weeks. But like with any risky medical procedure, no one can be one hundred per cent certain of the outcome. And you’re going to notice that some things — like your voice, for instance, which you already mentioned — might not seem the same as they did before your accident—’
‘That’s why it’s very important that you do what the doctors and nurses here tell you,’ Dad said.
‘Such as, don’t take off your sensors,’ Dr Holcombe said, picking up one he’d missed before and attaching it to my temple.
‘And no homework,’ Mom said. She’d recovered herself and wiped the tears from her eyes. Now she attempted a smile… and didn’t do a half bad job at it. ‘Understand? You need to concentrate on getting better first. Then we’ll worry about what’s going to happen with school.’
‘Fine,’ I said, glancing from her face to Dad’s, looking for some clue — any clue — as to what was really going on. Why were they treating me like I was in the first grade? Concentrate on getting better? Who did they think they were kidding? Why wasn’t anyone levelling with me? ‘But… I’ve really been in here a month? Can I at least call Christopher and find out what’s happening in school? He must be wondering how I am. I’m his only friend, you know… ’
But no one exactly rushed to get me a phone. Instead everyone said I needed to rest, that Christopher was fine and that they’d get me my laptop (my other request) soon. And Dr Holcombe did call a nurse over to unplug some of my more intrusive and bothersome wires (not all of them, it turned out, were attached to a sticker. Some of them were attached to needles that went UNDER my skin. It was quite a relief to get rid of those, in addition to the ones that pinged so noisily every time I moved).
So by the time Frida got back with my ice cream and cookie, everyone was treating me less like a hospital patient and a little more like a normal person.
‘Here,’ Frida said, putting the ice cream — which she’d slathered with hot fudge, whipped cream and nuts —
